Hello. My name is Jeff. I am, relatively speaking, a pretty moral guy; I don't lie, I don't steal, and I don't scam people. I treat other humans with respect, and do my best not to make life harder for them. I barely even cheat in video games. However, according to US law, I should be a felon.

Why, you ask? Because I play DVDs, listen to music on my portable audio device, occasionally want to print out an e-book, have installed windows, and print numbers in blog articles.

Mein Gott, I'm a monster.

All of these things are illegal because of a single bill passed in 1998, called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. After the senate passed this bill unanimously, Bill Clinton then signed it into law. Ahh, my tax dollars hard at work.

This bill makes it illegal to break copy protection, even when you are breaking the copy protection so that you can use the media for otherwise legal uses. For example, if I wanted to play a DVD on linux,(or on Windows with VLC) I would have to use a piece of software called "libcss" to decode it and be able to view it. This decoding process is illegal according to the DMCA, thus making myself, and millions of other linux and computer users, a potential felon.

If I wanted to listen to music I had legally purchased on itunes on my linux computer, or on my non-ipod portable audio device, I would have to strip away the DRM from the music file. This process is illegal, thus making myself a potential felon.

If I were to print out an e-book, I would be a potential felon, as I would have had to break the copy protection on it to do so. No reading your ebooks in the bathroom, dammit, it's a felony.

When I last installed Microsoft Windows, I was exceedingly surprised to find that they had black-listed my perfectly legal copy, thus making it impossible for me to activate it, and stopping me from using my legally purchased copy of Windows for more than 30 days. So I went out, found a crack to break this "protection", and used my copy of windows. This is illegal, even though if I had NOT broken it, Microsoft would have stolen a three hundred dollar piece of software from me. All I wanted to do was play Simcity, and now I should be a felon.

If I were to publish the number "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" on a popular blog, I would be breaking the DMCA, because this number breaks the overly-restrictive copy protection on HD-DVDs. This number cost millions of dollars and years to produce, and was broken for free in a matter of days. Good return on investment, that. Please note that I am not even /breaking/ the copy protection in this case: I am simply exercising my free speech to tell you about a number. This is illegal, and that fact is very, very frightening.

What can you do about this? I have no idea, I am not a lawyer. Try calling your congressmen, (A list of their phone numbers here) and politely asking them to work to repeal the DMCA. While you're at it, ask them to enforce Net Neutrality, stop the rampant killing of civilians in Iraq, give more money to help stop people in developing countries from starving to death, and generally just to stop being such retards.

The best method that I can think of to stop the DMCA is to just keep breaking it. Watch your legally purchased DVDS! Listen to your music where and how you'd like to! Print out Ebooks! Install Windows! Spread that number around like crazy! There are already millions of potential felons in the United States; They can't bloody well arrest us all.

Cheers!

-Jeff